HN Explorer

Ask HN: Why is the "Google, what were you thinking?" link getting killed

117 points by bonaldi ↗ HN
"New" is currently rammed with dead links to http://blog.mocality.co.ke/2012/01/13/google-what-were-you-thinking/ -- but it doesn't look like a dupe, since there are no live threads on it, and it doesn't strike me as spam. What's wrong with it?

33 comments

[ 5.3 ms ] story [ 106 ms ] thread
janzer
I just submitted it as well because it didn't seem to be posted.
hellweaver666
Same here... then I saw this in the new list!
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estel
Nope, it just appears that way without showdead.
paulsilver
I thought it was odd that I couldn't find it, so I submitted to find the conversation and it went in as a new sub. I can't see anyone else's submission of it in the first few pages of New.
janzer
In your profile page set "showdead" to yes.
paulsilver
Thanks, and yes, I can now see New is absolutely full of the same story.
EwanToo
I assume it's been manually flagged enough times that any new submissions to the same URL (or perhaps even the domain?) are now marked as spam and killed automatically.

That leaves the question of who'd be doing the flagging though, it seems a relevant story.

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yanw
The link was probably nuked because of it's all caps headline, try resubmitting it now using a headline with less caps.
EwanToo
There's been lots of submissions with different headlines, it seems any submission to the URL gets killed immediately. I assume it's a spam filter in action (and it's actually doing it's own job of keeping 50 copies of the same story from appearing).
Natsu
Which is weird in and of itself. Normally, submitting the same thing would get the first copy upvoted.

Just how were all those submissions bypassing that process?

EDIT: Here's the first link to it. It's the only submission by someone who joined over a year ago who has no comments and the default 1 karma. And it has an editorialized headline. I bet it would only take one flag to kill something like that. Then everything else would be marked as a dupe of something dead....

So much for "Don't be evil": How Google is doing evil in Kenya (co.ke)

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3459756

user24
I'm guessing the dupe filter doesn't check [DEAD] links
Natsu
You might be right. It might just auto-kill instead. Might be worth looking at the Arc source, but I'm about out of time right now.
pygy_
Or upvote the killed story, sending the vote to /dev/null.
yanw
Someone is suggesting that HK auto-kills .co.ke links: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3460186
dspillett
To verify that, rehost the story under a completely different TLD (adding links back to the original source and an explanation, of course, otherwise you might just look like any other blog-spam content farmer), and see if it gets accepted that way.
falling
Easy: HN users' Google apologism.

I participated in a few Google critical discussion in the past few weeks and a surprising number of them were killed for no apparent reason. They were lively, non abusive discussion, they just happened to be slightly critical to Google.

Since I have never witnessed the same for any other topic, I concluded that the HN crowd doesn't like Google being criticized too much.

npc
I've witnessed plenty of Google apologism on HN, but to be fair I've also witnessed a significant amount of anti-Google bias as well. Either way, saying that HN is deliberately blocking anti-Google sites strikes me as paranoid and needlessly cynical.
falling
Not HN, NH's crowd: by flagging those links. Of course the HN code itself is not biased.

(amended original post)

Of course people will be biased both ways, but I never personally witnessed dead links on Apple, Facebook or Microsoft criticizing discussions, so that's my conclusion from personal experience.

npc
Even saying "HN's crowd" is deliberately flagging legitimate links that are critical of Google is cynical as well. I must ask though, if you think HN is filled with people who are so uninterested in legitimate discussion, then why are you posting here? I'm not trying to be accusatory, but to me, posting on a site where people are not interested in honest discussion would feel like a huge waste of time.
falling
You are making my words sound worse than intended. It's not cynical: there cannot be an unbiased community so, by your reasoning, neither you or me should be part of any.

I'm just saying that, by the nature of Google as a company and of this community, the crowd here is more likely to be favorable to Google and take their side on issues, and this is evidenced by my own experience.

Natsu
It appears that the first submission had a highly editorialized headline and was submitted by someone who had made no other submissions or comments. Given the gravity of the accusation, I can easily see someone flagging it without even reading it. That would be enough to kill it and then the anti-spam code takes over from there with no conspiracy required, just one or maybe two flags on a story where someone thought the headline was overly editorialized.
falling
Correct: no conspiracy required, just bias.
dos1
My experience mirrors yours exactly. I'm not sure how or why Google garnered an untouchable status but I find it frustrating.
falling
They did it just like Apple and Microsoft did it with their own audience: by making stuff they like and being friendly to them.

People will always be biased, Google has always been a hacker friendly place so naturally hackers will like them and when you like somebody because you share their (true or perceived) values, you'll be biased in their favor.

foreverbanned
Obviously you have never participated in an Apple critical discussion...
bhousel
There is no grand conspiracy involving Google apologism. Everything with a .co.ke domain is auto-killed by the HN submission process.

I just tried it myself with some other random Kenyan domain: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3460932

jiaaro
... ok, and the obvious question: "Why are .co.ke domains auto-killed?"
bradleyland
Given that the"New" page is jammed with submissions, it's probable that they were auto-killed for spamming.
handelaar
Apparently because HN (incorrectly) regards .ke to have second-level domains. Which it doesn't.

This is a bug.